Melbourne’s new $15 billion Metro Tunnel will only operate for five hours a day when it opens in early December, with trains running every 20 minutes outside peak periods.
The full service for the new tunnel between Footscray and Caulfield, with five new stations under the CBD, will open on February 1, with trains running as frequently as every four minutes in a “turn up and go” timetable-free service on the Sunbury, Cranbourne and Pakenham lines.
The government said it would deliver an extra 1,000 weekly train services.
But when the metro tunnel first opens in early December — no date has been given yet — trains running through the tunnel will only operate between Westall station and West Footscray stations, every 20 minutes from 10am–3pm.
On weekends, the new tunnel will also operate to east Pakenham and Sunbury every 40 and 60 minutes respectively.
The government said a staged opening was the best international practice to ensure everything ran well before offering a full service.
The project has been plagued by delays and cost blowouts since it was announced in 2015.
The government announced earlier this week that all five Metro Tunnel stations were now complete, after construction finished on the Town Hall and State Library stations in the CBD.
Will be a project embraced by the public. In some way it is a pitty we will not see its real value in parkville until the university returns to 2026 with all the students coming back to campus.